Player Features and Ideas Discussion

QUICK RECAP (for those not wanting to reread the whole thing):

New Cap ship proposed: Size of a cruiser, but has all cap disadvantages:
A lot of skill points needed
Slow speed
Turns slowly when aligning (it won't warp quickly)
Very expensive
Requires a cyno to change systems, (covert or regular).

Advantages:
Has a special cloak instead of a shield, cannot be decloaked by proximity as regular CovOps types. As long as shield is above 5% the vessel is cloaked.
Has a high damage weapon. (Unspecified, but maybe something like multiple bomb launchers, 3 or 4)
Fires weapon while cloaked.

Counter: A destroyer type was suggested, using a new probe type similar to interdiction probes, but would instead strip the cloaking shields from anything within 15 KM. This effect provisionally would also pop any regular cloaks, but this may be cancelled by balance issues, or just tweaked to not make gate camps free death traps to CovOps.

If anyone has ever played the simulations for submarine warfare, most commonly from world war 2, you are familiar with this class of naval vessel.

Not a big ship, like a battle ship, but very dangerous, and focusing on strategies not found currently in EVE.

In naval warfare, these subs would try to sneak up on an enemy. They would observe the ship's progress, and then shoot torpedoes at the ship. The weapon has no eve equivalent, since nothing a cruiser sized vessel can fire will destroy a battleship in a single volley.

If the target survived, the sub did not make their life easier by sticking around on the surface, they stayed hidden and tried to finish the job.

Now, why am I referring to this?

I am suggesting a new type of capital ship. Smaller, (cruiser sized), and more likely to be undetectable as it never decloaks.

The sub's shields are obviously a special item. What if they had to 'cool off' between uses? The sub would switch to regular cloaks during this time, which would not even let it warp, so it would need to get safe first before switching over.

My idea, (game balance adjusting), is to have the special shields only useful for 15 to 30 minutes. Then the shield becomes unavailable for maybe 5 minutes while it cools off. During this 5 minute interval, regular cloaks still hide the sub, but it cannot warp, and has the 2KM pop radius of any other cloak.

TRADE-OFF: Like the old naval subs that needed to surface to recharge their batteries, it should gain speed and maneuverability improvements. Handling probably to improve to levels of a battleship, rather than a freighter. it CAN still warp, but not cloaked, so will likely not choose to do so as being to risky.

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Detail, if explanation needed: This really is not a traditional cloak. It put's the ship out of phase with other objects, making the familiar 2,000 meter decloaking effect meaningless to it.
This is why damage is exclusive to the shield cloak initially, as it is the only thing the rest of the universe can interact with.

(Yes, it can fire outwards, but only projectiles / missiles since they need to pass through the shield to reenter the universe with their targets. Beam weapons and hybrids do not have the needed time to reenter realspace before hitting a viable target)

I think there is too much Alpha killing.

In too many cases it is almost impossible to detect a cloaked ship, now you want it to instantly kill other ships? What would be the point then in doing pretty much anything if these cloaked ships can camp all the gates and keep killing all the miners?

We should have more opportunities to fight back, not less.

Addressing just the second part of your post:

Subs were effective against the hulls of naval ships, because they were designed to exploit that specifically.

Two surface ships would be on an even playing field against each other, neither having an advantage.

The submarine was exponentially more complicated to build and operate, and it's crew needed training beyond what a normal mariner required to serve.

This ship follows the same logic: it would require far more training to operate than a regular battleship, and it would cost a lot more too, comparable to other cap ships due to it's complexity.

The exploited advantage in this case is not the submerged part of a ship's hull, but the ship's structure by bypassing normal armor and shields protections. (balance details: how is it to be determined)

It sounds like you have more than one idea on this thread.

Is the destroyer part just to point out how you think the sub could be balanced, or are you suggesting it on it's own merits?

Ok, I'll bite, and be your devil's advocate here.

From perception, this will feel like that "I Win" button you mentioned.

Players can see, and therefore acknowledge, that a group of ships in a fleet took an obvious effort to bring together, and coordinate. They can see the effort at a glance, and feel better about giving up that kill mail.

Let's say you have this sub. It took lots of isk to train, as you pointed out it is a cap ship. It took lots of isk to buy the actual ship too, same reason.
I saw somewhere that you needed a cyno to change systems too, so you had to coordinate with others at some point.

So now, you have gone to a lot of cost and effort already. None of this is noticeable at a glance, to another player, so the perception of your efforts is ZERO.

Next you wait in system X, and you stake out a juicy outpost station or asteroid belt. Target rich area thing.
I guess you hope for an AFK, or anything that looks like it would not be able to fight back.

Boom, you launch your whatever weapon. The target goes boom.

HERE is your problem: All they ever saw was their precious ship getting single shotted into a killmail for you. NONE of your effort is obvious to them. They immediately feel cheated, and are mad.

The perception will be that you are overpowered. A roam fleet may kill them by moving quickly, and killing them with an alpha before they can react, but the roam has an obvious number of ships present, and does not FEEL overpowered.

You are losing the perception fight. It does not matter if you actually worked just as hard for that kill over time, noone is seeing this effort, so it feels like you just casually logged in, pushed your I WIN button, and waved as you flew off.

You aren't getting anywhere with this.

Players work based off of perception, not actual reality. And the game designers cater to that, as it doesn't matter how good or bad a game is, so long as paying players like it.

Players already resent cap ships. They are only accepted because alliances use them in fleets, where they are symbols of power for all to see.

Your so called subs won't ever have this parade to justify them, so whether or not they are balanced or fair will never become relevant. Game designers know this, and are not about to waste time because it is just that obvious.

On a side note, I never got too much into SBs mentioned earlier, but this is such an obvious path for them, why do you think there is no equivalent bigger than frigate size? (Black ops cannot even warp cloaked, and recons are very specifically not anything but big Covops)

Sorry, but a bomber in any air force can be a game changer. And so can a single cloaky bomber in eve.

One good bomber can lay waste to enemy supply lines in a few minutes. One good stealth bomber in eve can potentially do the same.



Of course, as with RL bombers, there are other weapons which are more effective.

I dont see what that has to do with my post. They are clearly situational, much like... oh - every other ship in the game.

And I fail to see how killing a hulk would be a game changer and applies... at all.

As for them only having "one surprise attack"... duh. They only do one thing.

And ok, fine, you wanna gank a hulk. Find one or two other people with SBs, that still isnt "large numbers" by any stretch of the imagination. You dont send in 1 F16 to engage a hijacked 747 do you? At least two, just to minimize the possibility of mistakes. Same thing applies here.

Ok, I read the important parts, and bolded what seems to be your point.

Your problem seems to be you are either anti-social, or you are just online at the wrong time. Same result, you are looking for a way to do solo stuff.

Now that I understand where you are coming from, (I think), your arguments make more sense. You repeatedly blow off any solution that uses teamwork, and admittedly SBs are not very effective by themselves.

The problem here, is that you are trying to bring new toys into our sandbox. Cloaky stuff scares a lot of players, and the designers have no incentive to alienate them.

I give you points for suggesting the counter, that destroyer idea. I think someone already recycled your idea for that on that new thread a DEV started. Pity you got no credit on that one.

The only way your idea sees life, is if the devs put the weapon in NPC hands first, then give players the destroyers to fight them with. This establishes in the game, and trains, how to fight your little nightmares.

Good luck. It's not a terrible idea, just might not be as popular as you hoped.

Sorry Squidgey, the 2 thing was me quoting you, I never endorsed the need for fleets on any level, mostly because Mary called me out fairly accurately. I am frequently not able to get online with others, so I am left to go solo a lot.

Now, wanting to be useful, and knowing I cannot regularly rely on support, I considered what effective means would I have as a solo type to PvP, etc.

I came up with the sub idea. I refined it, balanced it with weaknesses, and pointed out how easily it could be fought.

I figure it is pretty entertaining, and would definitely be a time sink for a lot of players on both sides.

Who wouldn't want a cap killmail? And a good destroyer pilot could definitely manage that.
(Maybe the decloak probe could be launched like a bomb, and fired at points in space? Maybe something systemwide could be used, enabling the destroyer a chance to try and probe down the ship briefly, making going afk in the sub dangerous indeed)